


On My Enemies

by NovaStars42



Series: The Kids Aren't Alright [21]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Absent Parents, Awkwardness, Crush, Friendship, Gen, Growing Up, Guilt, Humanstuck, Kankri is bewildered and Cronus jumps the gun, Love Confession, Meenah VS Damara prank war, Multi, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Rare Pairing, Realization, Summer Romance, Unexpected Kiss, a little bit of underage drinking, weird friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-03
Updated: 2017-03-03
Packaged: 2018-09-28 00:06:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10058180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NovaStars42/pseuds/NovaStars42
Summary: Kankri meets up with Damara and Cronus and spills his guts. They come back at him with something surprising.Occurs after "We Don't Talk Anymore" and "The Fear Of Falling."





	

**Author's Note:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdiWxwxydhk
> 
> Kankri is a really shitty person and I don't think I did him justice. Whatever.  
> That chapter got away from me and whoops.

Damara Megido told me that I needed therapy. After that day she’d saw me at work, she visited almost every day. Sometimes with Cronus Ampora, sometimes not.

I really liked to think that with all the internet social justice work I did, I’d know if I needed therapy or not but that apparently wasn’t what she meant. She hadn’t meant I needed professional help at all, she just wanted me to hang out with her and Cronus. Badly.

I guess that’s how I ended up in her back yard, standing awkwardly at her gate and trying to hide the half empty bottle of whiskey I’d swiped from my dad’s stash. He only drank on holidays, he’d never miss it.

I wondered if maybe I should have told Porrim where I was going. Then again, she was out with Latula and Mituna and a whole slew of our neighbors, congratulating the newlyweds. I didn’t particularly want anything to do with that outing.

Taking a deep breath, I pushed open Damara’s gate and let myself into her yard.

Damara was sitting at a picnic table near a small fire pit with Cronus right across from her. There was a blue cooler under one end, and firewood stacked under the other. Across the yard, under her porch canopy, a small stereo was on the local pop radio station.

“Hey, Chief! Cronus greeted, fussing with the straps of his bro tank.

"Hey,” Damara drawled, smiling. She didn’t have her usual makeup on, I realized.

“Hello,” I returned, coming closer to them, “what should I do with this?”

I held out the half pint of whiskey like it was diseased.

“Oh, I was just kidding about bringing booze when I invited you!” Damara sort of snickered. She took it from me, though, and tossed it in the cooler near her feet.

“Thanks, though, was nice ‘a ya’,” Cronus grinned.

I nodded and swallowed hard. What was going on here? I don’t think I’d ever been around Cronus when he wasn’t cracking old shitty jokes or being lewd about every person he saw nearby. And what was with Damara? Was she smiling? And she wasn’t being mean?

“Sit down, won’t ya’ bud?” Cronus asked, motioning to the seat next to Damara. “Or aren’t you stayin’?”

“Er, no, I am,” I disagreed, “I just uh,” I let my words trail off as I sat down stiffly.

Cronus went back to what he was doing, playing on his phone or something, but Damara got up, picking up a piece of firewood and feeding the fire. It was around eight o’ clock in the evening. The summer sun was setting and Damara’s yard lights came on, little strings of almost Christmas lights glowing on her fence, her canopy and on her house. They must have been on a timer.

“I gotta go check on Aradia, I’ll be right back,” Damara announced, leaving the fire in favor of the house. She used the sliding door and disappeared into her house.

“Her folks left for the weekend, left her in charge, ” Cronus filled in without prompting.

“Oh? And they’re alright with her having friends over when they aren’t home?” I asked.

He just sort of shrugged. “Her stepdad not so much, but her mom never says anything.”

I just sort of nodded and let Cronus talk.

“Coincidentally, I’m babysitting Eridan tonight too, I’m gonna have to go check on him after a while. Pain in my ass is what he is. I liked him better when he lived at my mother’s.”

The sliding glass door slid open and closed again as Damara returned, this time with a stack of red solo cups.

“Well?” Cronus asked.

“She’s doing fine I guess. I don’t remember being so silly when we were her age, but whatever. Still playing dungeons and dragons online with her friend,” Damara snarked, pulling a cup off the pile and bending down to the cooler. She pulled out three cans of Pepsi and the whiskey before she sat down.

I watched her crack a can and pour it into the cup, and then twist the lid off of the whiskey. There was only half a bottle there, so really there wasn’t enough to get drunk on. Not even buzzed. She passed the first drink she mixed over to Cronus.

“Dunno. All them kids are weirdoes, getting up to weird shit. I swear, Eridan comes up with so much shit to fight about,” Cronus offered. Damara rolled her eyes at the sentiment.

She mixed a second drink and slid it my way. “What about you, Kankri? What’s your brother up to?”

“He’s,” I paused, grasping the drink in my left hand and staring down into the fizzing liquid. “Still as grumpy as he’s always been. Just, now he’s love sick with Roxy Strider’s younger brother.”

“Oh, yeah,” Cronus agreed. “Heard all about that. Eridan bullies his sister and her little girlfriend pretty bad I guess.”

“What for?” I found myself asking.

Cronus shrugged. “He’s a mean spirited individual ’s all I can come up with.”

I stared down into my drink, feeling the cold radiate off of the cup. The yard was silent for just a moment, save for the radio. Finally, after what felt like forever, I took a quick slurp from the cup. It didn’t taste bad, more bitter than regular Pepsi. I couldn’t feel the burn of the alcohol at all.

Damara emptied the rest of the whiskey into a third cup and kept that drink for herself.

“Okay, but here’s the real question,” she said, “what are these brats gonna do when we all go off to college?”

“Mituna Captor is sticking around,” I offered.

“Fat lot of good that’ll do,” Cronus rolled his eyes.

I averted my eyes for a moment, rubbing my arm absentmindedly. He was right, but I guess I didn’t see the need to point it out. I resisted the urge to lecture him about ableist language.

That was the old me. New Kankri didn’t pick fights for stupid reasons. He wasn’t being ablest either, I realized. He and Mituna had disliked each other before his accident. This whole thinking before I spoke thing was really working out well.

The conversation reached a stopping point then. I was extremely uncomfortable but I could tell the other two weren’t. Damara was looking at something on her phone, smiling a bit and Cronus was checking his hair on her mirror phone case.

I really didn’t need to break the silence. I didn’t need to. I just needed to keep my mouth shut. I’d be better off. They’d think better of me. The absolute last thing I needed to do was talk.

“So um, Damara, did you have a reason you needed me? Or, like a reason to call me over?”

Goddamn it.

Damara kind of scrunched up her eyebrows. Paired with her defensive smile, I could tell I’d offended her. “What? No, I don’t have a reason. I just wanted to hang out.”

Er, maybe I hadn’t offended her? I think maybe I was confusing her.

“Oh,” I replied. I felt pretty dumb right about then.

“I think I get it,” she said, “at first I couldn’t decide if maybe you wanted someone to need you, but are you worried we’re gonna shaft you?”

I- er, was I? Was I worried Damara and Cronus were going to get a call, get a text, meet someone else and drop me like Latula? Porrim was my best friend, probably my only friend for a while there, but she had other people she wanted to hang out with too.

“I think maybe I, uh, I think maybe I am?” I agreed. “It’s just so, everything’s up in the air. I deleted all my blogs, I got off Facebook, and I’ve just spent so much time trying to connect but in the wrong way.”

“Especially with Latula. Why didn’t she think she needed to talk to me? Couldn't she have even acknowledged the fact I had feelings for her? She didn’t think twice about brushing me off as a friend or a partner. Don’t tell me for years she had no idea I had a crush on her.”

“Holy fuck, and Porrim. She tried to tell me so much stuff over the years and I just brushed her off. She actually cared about real issues that mattered and all I cared about was arguing about frivolous things. How do I just go forward with her? How do I go forward with anyone? I’m gonna fucking trigger myself, oh my god.”

The space was quiet for just a moment as I took a deep breath, I could feel my cheeks burning.

“Holy word vomit, chief,” Cronus deadpanned.

“Kankri,” Damara began. She paused, unsure how to proceed. “Kankri, that’s progress.”

“How can it be progress?” I argued.

“Well, first of all recognizing the problem is the first step. Latula wasn’t under any obligation to come to you about your feelings. Girls aren’t obligated to boys fit any romantic reason, but it was wrong of her as a friend to treat you the way she did,” Damara tried to explain. It sounded like something Porrim would say.

“You’re right,” I muttered, looking down at my hands. Porrim had been right all along.

“That’s okay, dude,” Cronus grinned, reaching over to give me a gentle shove. “She’s learning me about all this stuff too.”

“You're way too hung up on Latula, forget about her,” Damara urged.

“I wish it was that simple,” I rolled my eyes.

“I’ll give you something to think about instead, come here,” Cronus chatted. He stood up and came around to my side of the table and slid in next to me, sandwiching me between Damara and himself.

“What?” I questioned.

Cronus didn’t say another word. He leaned in, invading my personal space. I couldn’t lean away from him, not with Damara hard on my other side. Cronus closed the space between us and pressed his lips to mine. His lips were wet and warm and I’d..I’d never kissed anyone besides Porrim once on a dare, and it took me just a moment to even realize what was going on. He was pulling away before I even got a chance to kiss back.

Cronus smirked, rocking back and licking his lips. I couldn’t feel my head.

“What-” I started to say.

“My turn,” Damara cut me off. She twisted my face around, her hand rough on my chin and before I knew it she was kissing me too.

She pulled away and I exhaled finally, hot breath passing between us.

“I think you’re cute, Kankri. Cronus thinks you are too,” She whispered.

“W-w-what?” I stammered.

She nodded. “We weren’t gonna ask you for another couple of weeks, though, Cronus kind of jumped the gun. What do you think, huh? Would you have us?”

I felt her kick Cronus in the shin between my legs.

“Ow, shit, Damz!” He complained, “I couldn’t wait no more. The poor guys just so glum. We really did invite you over no strings attached, though, Kankri. It sort of snowballed.”

“Hold on, hold on just one second,” I defied, “how am I supposed to date you both? How could that possibly work?”

Damara shrugged. Cronus pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and pinned it between his lips.

“Won’t I get between the two of you?”

“Oh, oh god no!” Cronus rejected. “We ain’t dating.”

That only served the further bewilder me. “You aren’t?”

“Nah, chief. We’re buds but I couldn’t see it.”

“You can’t see dating Damara, but you can see both of you sharing dating me?” I asked. This was getting weirder and weirder by the minute. Cronus nodded. Damara reached over and snatched his cigarette pack out of his hand. I watched her light one up out of the corner of my eye.

“We get it if you’re weirded out,” Damara said, blowing her smoke away from us.

“She might be,” Cronus half-joked, earning him another kick to the shin.

“This is really,” I took a deep breath, “sudden.”

“We're not asking you to literally enter a relationship tonight,” Damara made clear.

Cronus plucked his pack back out of her hands. “Yeah, there’s this thing called datin’? Ever heard of it?”

Oh. Oh, okay sure. That made more sense. That was less scary. The funny thing about this was even though they were literally shoulder to shoulder with them but I didn’t feel boxed in. I wasn’t relaxed either, but I wasn’t so tense my muscles cramped. “So you’re asking me to date you. Both. See if I like it, and then, if, if I do, you want me to what? Make it into some kind of three-way relationship? How would that work?”

“Oh, ya’ know. We’d work it out,” Cronus turned around, sitting the wrong way now and leaning on the table. “Shit. I gotta go check on my little worm of a brother.”

“You think on it Kankri. In the meantime, let’s just have fun, alright?” Damara asked, and for the first time she took her drink and knocked it back. I wondered if she was trying to look cool too, like Cronus.

Eventually, Cronus got up and left to check on his brother, leaving me with Damara to make small talk about small things. I was surprised by how natural it felt. Cronus was back after about fifteen minutes, a hand full of candy with him.

“For the festivities,” he said, dumping it out on the table.

“Thanks,” Damara replied, grabbing up a piece of salt water taffy and popping it into her mouth. I watched her reach up and pull her hair tie out, her bun coming undone and falling around her shoulders. I never realized it was so long.

“What was your brother up to?” I asked, trying to make conversation.

Cronus opened a bag of sour patch kids and huffed. “Reading an old history book. Kid never gets out and does anything.”

“Where’s your dad at tonight?” I followed up.

“Work, I think. Dunno, he don't usually tell me. My old man isn’t much for conversation,” he replied, popping a piece of candy in his mouth. “What about yours?”

I guess my dad had been a pretty sore subject since the fourth. I wasn’t near as unhappy with him as Karkat and Nepeta. We were still on speaking terms, but the relationship wasn’t what it used to be.

“He’s out with his girlfriend,” I answered.

Damara considered that for a moment. “Was that whole situation weird? I heard all about it.”

“The whole neighborhood heard all about it,” I frowned, “it was weird, but it could have been worse. I guess. I gained two sisters, but it’s not like we hang out.”

“Parents,” Cronus scoffed, opening another bag of candy.

Wheels squealed on the blacktop outside of the yard. I couldn’t see who’s car it was obviously but I’d bet money it was Meenah. She drove like a maniac. Damara was up moments later, jogging over and jumping up on to her privacy fence to peer over it.

“Shit,” she swore. “I think her whole house is empty. Her mom is still at work and her sister is over to the captors.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” I asked. Oh no. Damara had some sort of one-ups-manship going on with her, didn’t she? Cronus was already on his feet.

“Food dye or toilet paper?”

“Neither,” Damara answered, “were gonna leave her a present.”

She was off the fence moments later, dashing up her porch steps and into her house. She left the door open she was moving so quickly.

“You comin’?” Cronus asked, turning to me.

“Is she going to vandalize something?” I thought to inquire.

“Don’t matter, we’re just gonna watch from the window,” he replied. He waited for me to get up, and I followed him inside.

Shutting the door behind me, I surveyed Damara’s house. It was an exact replica of my own, but her mother had very different decorating habits. Damara spoke Japanese but I never asked her where she’d learned it. A few pictures on the wall in her hallway implied it was her mother.

There was a woman I recognized as Mrs. Droog and kids that had to have been Aradia and Damara, standing in front of a sign that read Tokyo airport with other people looking related. There were other pictures of them too in other places. From a vacation maybe? Newer photos contained pictures of her stepfather, but Damara was in them less frequently.

“Kankri,” Cronus called from the front room, and I realized he’d left me.

I joined him in the living room, hanging out the front door. Meenah’s house wasn’t directly across the way, it was more to the right, kitty-corner.

There was Damara, across the street, a little brown bag in her hand, and left it on the porch. Before anyone could see her she slunk back into her own yard and escaped into the house.

She giggled, happy to apparently be causing someone else grief.

Moments later, Meenah pulled back into her driveway. She’d apparently just run to the corner party store because she and Vriska Serket got out of her car. She appeared to notice the bag right away, and she shoved her Arizona tea into Vriska’s hand.

Meenah picked up the bag, she handled it carefully. She took one look inside and even from where I was standing I could see her face turn beat red.

“This isn’t funny Megido!” She shouted, scowling.

Behind me, Damara was still laughing, and grinning like a fox.

“What was it?” Cronus asked.

“I got her a ball gag, so she’d shut her fucking trap!”

I felt my face heat with a blush too. Cronus split, literally slapping his knee. It wasn’t that funny. Well, okay maybe it was. I found myself laughing too. Meenah was still standing in her yard, looking flustered, and that only made me laugh harder.

“Damara! I’m hungry! Would you order us a pizza?” Aradia called from her bedroom.

Damara wasn’t laughing that hard, but she held on to her smirk as she fixed her shorts and sighed. She said something in Japanese to Aradia and then to us asked; “you guys cool with pepperoni?”

“ ’s cool with me,” Cronus affirmed.

I liked them both, I decided. I liked talking with them and listening to them just as much. They both did little things that made me feel like they genuinely wanted me around as much as they wanted each other. If this was Damara’s idea of therapy then maybe I was going to need a lot more if it.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't spend a lot of time on any one pairing so we won't see Kankri, Damara and Cronus figure this out but they do, off screen and it takes them a few weeks. They end up in a relationship.


End file.
